I like books that bring me to places and let me experience other cultures and Burning does that. It is set in a small American town. I’m no stranger to small American towns. But my small hometown is in Ohio with it’s temperate 4 seasons. Burning is set in Gypsum, Nevada. Â Gypsum is a fictional town closing down with the gypsum mine it supported. A casualty of the crashed housing market, it’s drywall factory also closes. You feel the heat and the depression radiate from the pages. It’s beautifully done but still mostly familiar as we read about Ben, getting ready to escape the collapse of Gypsum to go to college on a track scholarship.
Then we meet Lala who startles us with a pragmatic and human experience of Romani Gypsy culture. No hocus-pocus, just a family taking a detour on a business trip. An ordinary family with ordinary hopes and conflicts. On their way to buy cars for their car lot, they stop on the outskirts of Gypsum and set up a fortune-telling tent. It’s the only road into and out of the Burning Man festival where thousands of free-spirits funnel past many of whom stop for readings.
Boy meets girl and bam! Attraction leads to introspection leads to conflict leads to one night at Burning Man and lives changed forever. Yes, it’s a young adult title and is a classic coming-of-age story for both Ben and Lala. More than that, it’s a glimpse of modern Gypsy life intersecting with contemporary small-town America.
There is so little out there about Gypsies. Rather, there is little that doesn’t cast Gypsies as sensationalized, romanticized or vilified caricatures of themselves. I was grateful to Elana Arnold for this simple, honest glimpse of a little-understood culture flourishing right under our noses.
Read ~ Write ~ Wander
~Angie
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(cover art displayed under fair use)